Climate Talk: Empowering the next generation to find their voice
Year Awarded
2024
Amount
€59,809.8
- Organisation:Dublin City University (DCU)
- Audience:Transition Year Students
- Format:Formal Education
- Topic:STEAM
Project Summary
The world is in the midst of a climate crisis. As put by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in March 2023: “The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years”. At the same time, growing climate anxiety amongst children and young people has been attributed to feelings of powerlessness[5].
The ClimateTalk project is focused on developing a programme for Transition Year (TY) students on science communication, science and media literacy, and multimedia skills, with a focus on communicating about the climate crisis. Students will learn to become confident and proficient science communicators on topics of importance to them, how to spot misinformation and disinformation and become media and science literate. They will learn hands-on multimedia techniques to create content to communicate what they learn.
We will run onsite workshops with students and through this, a new generation of science communicators will be fostered; meanwhile, we learn from them and inform best practice on how to better engage with this generation. At the project’s end, we will have a repository of multimedia tools that students and educators can apply to any scientific topic. Empowering students to speak on climate, and to have agency to discuss topics important to them, will help reduce climate anxiety. The project will culminate in a showcase event where students will share their media with other participants in the programme and their families, and compete for a prize for best media.